WeBuyAnyCar has landed itself in hot water with the advertising watchdog after sending thousands of e-mails containing a 'exaggerated and misleading' graph - which it subsequently claimed wasn't a graph.

The car buying company sent out e-mails in bulk during the first two months of the year stating: 'Beat the price drop! The car market is entering a busy period which means now could be a good time to sell your [car]… REMEMBER: The value of your [car] could be a lot less in 3 months' time*'.

It used a graph to show cars would depreciate in value sharply from high to low over a three month period. However, three recipients complained the graph didn't use actual figures and the Advertising Standards Authority agreed.

Hot water: WeBuyAnyCar has been warned by the ASA after e-mailing out a misleading graph

The e-mail said 'the average car loses value every month' and the firm directed recipients to the smallprint at the bottom of the ad via an asterisk.

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The ASA said: 'By presenting the information in the way that they did, we consider that WeBuyAnyCar created the impression the line represented a relationship between variables and would be regarded by consumers as indicating that car values depreciated at a rapid and accelerating rate.

'We understood that the central aim of the ad was to communicate that, with the release of new number plates in several weeks' time, as well as other factors, recipients' vehicles were likely to decrease in value in the near future.

'We did not consider this to be sufficient evidence that, on average, all cars would depreciate rapidly, moving from a "high" to "low" value over a three-month period and at an accelerating rate, the general trend suggested by the curve of the line in the graphic.

'We considered that to present a curve that suggested such a trend in the context of claims about the effects of various factors, some of them short term, was likely to mislead readers.'

As a result, the ASA has told WeBuyAnyCar not to use the ad again, as it breached codes around misleading advertising and exaggeration.

It has also warned it not to use visual representations in their advertising in the future that are likely to mislead consumers.

WeBuyAnyCar said in the ruling that it had a large amount of knowledge, data and experience to support the fact car prices fall, but said it was too voluminous to provide and was not necessary or appropriate to do so in the context of the complaint.

WeBuyAnyCar also said the complaint referred to an image which was a graph that was intended as a visual message to 'reinforce the simple point that cars may go down in value over time'.

It emphasised the illustration did not include a scale or any monetary values and therefore could not strictly be termed a 'graph'.

It believed that rather than being misleading, the graphic actually helped customers to understand the message more clearly.

However, they stated that even if they were to accept that consumers would look at the graph while ignoring the rest of the email and would interpret it as showing a relationship between data values, they believed that the alleged claim was, in fact, accurate.

The ASA did not agree.

WeBuyAnyCar launched in 2006. In the ten years since, it has grown from one office in Surrey to a nationwide network of 200-plus dealers. It has bought some 750,000 cars; in 2014, its turnover nudged £557million.

A 2011 probe into WeBuyAnyCar by the then Office of Fair Trading found 'a lack of transparency dealing with customers'.

Some 96 per cent of those who sold to the firm got less than the original online valuation, it discovered.